On H List of Movie Reviews
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Hush (1998)
Rate:
5
Viewed:
5/25
5/25:
Hush looks the part for a suspense thriller but rarely lives up to it.
Often reminding me of Rosemary's Baby, it doesn't go there but rather
focuses on the possessiveness of a mother over her son. Where director Jonathan Darby makes the fatal mistake
is not developing relationships to the fullest. Instead, he skips ahead in the timeline. As a result, the film
becomes more and more banal.
Jessica Lange and Gwyneth Paltrow give competent performances as Martha and her daughter-in-law but have been
undermined in the final thirty minutes. The air simply runs out for the former while the latter is made to look
ridiculous by giving a summation that's typical of Agatha Christie's stories. Even Johnathon Schaech is too
cardboard to make his character worth caring about. He might as well never exist.
The look of the mansion, along with the surrounding land, is interesting. Martha claims that she doesn't
need any help, but how can she possibly keep up with the maintenance? She'll have to clean the inside, mow the
grass, shop for food, work with horses, dress up and put on makeup, and so on. That's exhausting for one person.
In the meantime, why would Martha allow her daughter-in-law to be in danger of losing her baby if that's what
she wanted all along? Therefore, I don't get the motive anymore. How is it possible the
daughter-in-law, who's probably in eighth or ninth month of her pregnancy, can keep running and falling
down for so long and yet deliver a healthy baby at the mansion just in time?
All in all, Hush is the film to avoid if Jessica Lange is on the record by calling it a "piece of shit."